About

“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.”

Isaac Asimov, Futurist

Some things are just really hard to talk about. They’re challenging, awkward or taboo, and so together we've decided they're not fit for the dinner table. But what would happen if we changed all that? What would happen if we brought some danger to dinner and things got real all of a sudden?

Hard Things To Talk About is an immersive dinner series doing just that.

We are inviting you to dinner to feast like never before and explore what we really think about the big things in life we rarely talk about. We're serving up Sex, Death, Fear, Failure, Desire, Loss, Loneliness, Bias, Taboo, The Inner Life, Our Dark Side, The Unimagined, The Unknown, The Universe, Hope and Consciousness.

After an overwhelming response and sold out launch events exploring the complex and curly topic of Bias, we’re been back in the kitchen and are excited to bring you something equally enticing and sticky to feast on! Next up on the menu is the epic theme of Loneliness.

It will be a dinner like no other you've been to before.Take a leap into the unknown.Challenge what you think... or what you think you know.We promise it’ll be fun!

Upcoming Events

02.0 - Loneliness - SYDNEY - Wed 28 MAR 2018

Join us as we lift the lid on Loneliness and sink our teeth into one of the most essential human experiences we rarely admit, let alone talk about, together. We are told we are in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, yet we seem more connected than ever before. Where are we lonely and what does it mean? Can loneliness ever be good? What is the difference between being alone and being lonely, or isolation and solitude? What are the antidotes to loneliness? And can any living thing ever be alone? Join us as, together, we embark on a journey to the lonely places in our lives to better understand connection – and the spaces in between.

03.0 - Desire - PUGLIA, ITALY - JUN 2018

04.0 - The Unimagined - LONDON - JUL 2018

Past Events

01.0 - Bias - Against The Grain - SYDNEY - AUG 2015

First on the menu, our launch events served up a stunning feast exploring the curly topic of Bias. Surprising and charming, challenging (in all the best ways!) and utterly delicious, the night was a feast for the senses. Our guests dined with uniquely themed dishes and story-led liquids, immersed in performance and provocation, and leaped kneedeep into heartful, heartfelt and at times hilarious conversations. The room was alive with laughter, meaning and memorable connections.

With our brave and wonderful team of collaborators comprised of Glider’s much-loved (and much-lauded) chef-in-residence, O Tama Carey (previously of Berta and the Lankan Filling Station); Ethicist John Neil (The Ethics Centre); and science communicator and ABC News journalist Wendy Zukerman, together we explored the basis for our biases.

We like to think we’re risk takers and we’re open to the new, but it is often a subtle challenge that reveals our own quiet biases. How do they form? Are they ever good? How do we break them down and open ourselves up to the unknown? Or are we just hardwired to reject?

The Art of Conversation

Memorable conversations are sometimes playful and cheeky or bold and adventurous – other times deep and insightful or challenging and gritty. Whatever their tone, the best conversations are honest, human and real. Great conversation can draw you in, stir your mind, lift your spirit or open your heart. Great conversation can shape how we understand each other, ourselves, and the world we live in. Human history itself has been described as an unending conversation…

A Project of Glider

Hard Things To Talk About is a Glider Special Project. Glider creates new form experiences that move people to think, feel, be and do in new and fuller ways. We are passionate about partnering with courageous and heartful collaborators who want to lean into life and gently prompt people to fully explore and inhabit all the complexity and wonder of Being Human. By sharing important stories and sparking meaningful conversations we want to celebrate the essence of aliveness and better understand our shared human experience, so that together we might live well.

Our Co-Conspirators

Glider is passionate about partnering with people and organisations that want to open up real conversations and deeply explore together the big human issues.

01.0 - Bias

Our first host partner for 01.0 Bias was The Ethics Centre.The Ethics Centre creates the space to talk about the things that matter - issues at the heart and centre of being human. They're committed to injecting a pause into the centre of public life and allowing people to stop, connect with others and explore the ethical dimension of our everyday lives. It's an invitation to better know ourselves and our world, where we have the courage to stand up for our values and principles, the wisdom to explore the unknown, the opposed, or the complex, and the imagination and heart to strive for the very best of all we can be.

Glider would also like to thank its Chef-in-Residence O Tama Carey, sommelier Kate O'Hara, and Performer-in-Residence Benjamin Hancock for their energy, generosity and creativity. Thank you for trusting us and taking the leap, bringing the best of your amazing talents to work with us to create something truly new and stunning.

HARD THINGS TO TALK ABOUT is an immersive dinner series established to explore the issues we really want to talk about but rarely do. Take a leap into the unknown.